Did King Richard III Undergo Painful Scoliosis Treatment?

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King Richard III may not have been a hunchback as portrayed by
Shakespeare, but he did suffer from the spine-curving condition
scoliosis, and he may have undergone painful medical treatments
to straighten it out, scientists report today (April 19).

Now, Mary Ann Lund, of the University of Leicester's School of
English, has looked into the types of scoliosis treatments
available when Richard III was alive, finding one would have been
widely available for those who could afford it, such as the
nobility.

Even so, there is no evidence on his bones to support the
treatment.

"It wouldn't necessarily be possible to distinguish such signs,"
Lund told LiveScience. "Richard had idiopathic adolescent onset
scoliosis, which means that the cause for it is not apparent, and
that it developed after the age of about 10. So he would probably
have been treated as an adolescent as well as during his adult
life."

Richard III was born in was born in 1452 and ruled England from
1483 to 1485, a reign cut short by his death at the Battle of
Bosworth Field, the decisive battle in the English civil war
known as the War of the Roses.

At the time, scoliosis was generally thought to be caused by
an imbalance in the body's humors. "The theory of the humors
would mean that this [treatment] would be geared towards
Richard's individual humoral complexion," Lund wrote in an email.
"Given the severity of his scoliosis, it's likely that treatment
would have involved more than the topical application of
ointments."

Some of the short-term scoliosis treatments available during the
late medieval period would have been painful, Lund said. For
instance, one such treatment, traction, relied on the same
principle as the so-called Rack used in torture, she added.
[ Medieval
Torture's 10 Biggest Myths ]

For this treatment, rope would be tied under the patient's
armpits and around his legs; these ropes would then be pulled at
either end to stretch the person's spine.

Richard III would have been able to afford traction treatment,
Lund said. In addition, his doctors would have been well aware of
the method, which was detailed in treatises on medicine and
philosophy by 11th-century Persian polymath Avicenna. (Avicenna's
work seems to have been influenced by Greek philosopher
Hippocrates, Lund said.) These treatises, including Avicenna's
theories on using traction in scoliosis treatment, would have
been widely read in Medieval Europe, Lund noted.

Avicenna's treatments for back
disorders also included massage techniques done in Turkish
baths and herbal applications. For longer-term care, patients
were likely encouraged to wear a long piece of wood or metal to
straighten their spines, Lund said.

"Hippocratic medicine was based on responding carefully to the
individual, so without Richard's medical records we can only make
conjectures," Lund wrote. Whether the possible treatment worked
is also "impossible" to definitively answer, Lund said.
"Historical accounts describe him as an active fighter in battle,
so he was clearly able to do strenuous physical activity. On the
other hand, it seems likely that the condition was painful and
would have restricted his lung capacity," Lund wrote.

Finding Richard

After the king's death in battle, he was brought to Leicester and
reportedly interred at the church of the Grey Friars, a location
long lost to history. Even so, interest in the king led to some
far-fetched grave tales about the burial's whereabouts,
including one purporting the bones were thrown into the Soar
River. "Other fables, equally discredited, claimed that his
coffin was used as a horse-trough," Philippa Langley, a Richard
III Society member, said in a statement.

Relying on historical records, University of Leicester
archaeologists started digging beneath the Leicester City Council
parking lot on Aug. 25. They soon
found the church and a
17th-century garden marked by paving stones. Records suggest
mayor of Leicester Robert Herrick built a mansion and garden on
the medieval church site years after the king's death, reportedly
placing in the garden a stone pillar inscribed with, "Here lies
the body of Richard III sometime King of England."

Shortly thereafter, the team unearthed human remains, including
both a female skeleton (possibly an early church founder) and a
male skeleton with a spine curved by scoliosis. The male
skeleton's skull was cleaved with a blade, and a barbed metal
arrowhead was lodged among the vertebrae of the upper back.

Interest in the king has remained strong. Richard III
enthusiasts, or Richardians, as they are called, have societies
in the United Kingdom and the United States. The
discovery of the bones of the medieval king has only swelled
their passions.

"He's just such an enigmatic figure, and people are drawn to
that, because there's such mystery about him," Molly McAleavey, a
Denver-based member of the Richard III Foundation, one of the
societies dedicated to the king, told LiveScience in March. "What
was he like, really? What is the truth?"

Little bits of this truth continue to spill out from the world of
archaeology and social sciences.